Military Medical Service

one of the special services of the armed forces of the USSR that safeguards the health of servicemen and provides systematic medical sup-port in peacetime and wartime.

In peacetime the military medical service is responsible for carrying out a complex of therapeutic and prophylactic measures to protect and improve the health of the personnel of the armed forces, for maintaining healthy conditions among the troops and protecting them against widespread (especially epidemic) diseases, for training servicemen in methods of rendering first aid to the wounded and injured in combat, for teaching hygienic habits to prevent infectious diseases, and for organizing and carrying out combat and special training of military medical personnel. In wartime the main tasks of the military medical service are to save the lives of as many wounded, injured, and sick as possible and to restore their combat efficiency very quickly. To perform these tasks successfully, the system of medical support for the troops provides for rational division of medical care in time (change of the length of time of providing care in accor-dance with the nature of the injury, the condition of the victim, and the military situation) and space (distribution between various medical installations of the therapeutic measures to be taken for the wounded and injured); for the organic combination of therapeutics and medical evacuation and maintenance of the continuity of care for the sick and wounded in the medical evacuation stages; for echelonment (that is, separate positioning farther or closer to the front) of medical installations and maneuvering them in accordance with the situation. Also of importance in the system of medical support are the sanitary and hygienic and epidemic-control measures taken to protect the troop personnel against the development and spread of infectious diseases, a matter of particular significance if the troops have to stay in areas threatened with epidemics.

In a regiment the military medical service is represented by a regimental medical post, which includes an infirmary with physicians and medics, a pharmacist, a dentist, and soldiers assigned to it. The regimental medical service organizes and carries out all the necessary therapeutic and prophylactic, sanitary and hygienic, and epidemic-control measures. The medical manpower and resources of regiments and other detached units making up a division constitute the division medical service. A division has a medical battalion or infirmary to provide qualified medical care.

The military medical service has at its disposal a network of permanent installations—garrison and district military hospitals, garrison polyclinics, military sanatoriums and soldiers’ resorts, and health facilities for coping with epidemics. The Central Military Medical Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR is responsible for the general direction of the military medical service.